


safe houses

by dustbear



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Baking, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Presumed Dead, eventual clint barton/phil coulson - Freeform, maria hill is not an asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-23
Packaged: 2017-12-23 18:10:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustbear/pseuds/dustbear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three months after the Battle of New York, Clint Barton quits S.H.I.E.L.D and finds himself taking a cross country tour of Phil Coulson's safe houses. </p><p>But in Albuquerque, in a safe house owned by Phil Coulson with orange walls, he finds an unexpected friend, and an unexpected new chance to start over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started this Phil-comes-back-to-life thing months ago, and it occurred to me that I really have to finish it before he actually does come back to life in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 
> 
> I'll be honest with ya - this is mostly lots of feelings.
> 
> But the Clint/Maria is actually mostly Clint & Maria, so don't be worried.

Three months. Three months is how long Clint puts up with the stares, the jeers, the whispers about him on the helicarrier. Three months of being on suspended duty, three months of being under investigation, three months of being poked and prodded and interrogated. Three months of being the unspoken S.H.I.E.L.D. Enemy Number One; at least the Chitauri didn’t technically _betray_ anyone. He sticks it out three months, because it’s what Phil would have wanted. “Stay strong, Barton, this will be over soon,” Phil would have said, but the wishes of a dead man are hard to obey.

No one becomes his new handler. “You have to level out,” Natasha says, and what the fuck does that mean? He tells her to fuck off, tells his only friend to leave him the fuck alone, and he doesn’t make amends.

When he hands in his resignation letter, no one tries to convince him otherwise.

He has an old truck; he drives west.

\---

He is there before he knows it, a familiar red roofed house, with an overgrown lawn and a sad looking apple tree in the yard. There aren’t any neighbours for miles.

He climbs to the roof, and checks the windows, which are securely locked, before dropping back to the back door, flipping open the key panel. He places his palm to the scanner,  and it opens with a satisfying click.

The house is comfortable, but unlived in. There is a thin layer of dust coating every surface, and Clint instinctively grabs a cloth from the kitchen and wipes down the dining room table.

In the laundry room, there is a hamper, still with a couple of shirts and a pair of jeans in it. The jeans are Clint’s, as is one of the shirts. The other - the other is Phil’s, and Clint still remembers how Phil looks in it, lean muscles enveloped in a slightly-too-small grey shirt, with Lilith Fair ‘98 emblazoned on the front. “You let your ex girlfriend drag you to Lilith Fair?” Clint had mocked, but Phil had smiled and then proceeded to only play Liz Phair CDs throughout the evening. Clint doesn’t like Liz Phair, but he likes Phil. Clint picks up the grey shirt. It still smells like Phil, like standard issue soap, and vanilla and coffee. It is soft.

He finds Phil’s Liz Phair CD - it’s Exile in Guyville, and he still doesn’t like it, but it reminds him of Phil, so he drops it into the small CD player and hits play.

He sinks into the couch, shirt in his hand, and falls asleep. He sleeps for twelve hours, and wakes up at dawn.

There is an assortment of canned foods in the pantry. The fridge is empty. Clint eats canned pineapple and baked beans for breakfast. He’s eaten worse.

He investigates the house, although he knows that it is just as they’d left it, on one of their last missions together. It is clean and tidy, but there is still a remarkable _Phil-ness_ about it. It’s a safe house, it is necessarily generic, but there are small suggestions of personality peeking in through the cracks. A large vintage Captain America poster hangs in the living room, a reproduction certainly, ordered online for $19.99. Clint knows that Phil owns another facsimile of it - an original one, found at a New York comic swap meet. It used to live in his apartment, now long packed up and sent to storage in some nameless S.H.I.E.L.D. warehouse.

He leaves Phil’s Ohio safehouse the way it was, except he slips Phil’s shirt and the Liz Phair CD into his bag on the way out.

\---

The next safe house is in Peoria, Illinois, and Clint doesn’t really expect to be driving there, but he does and he decides that perhaps a cross country tour of Phil’s old safehouses isn’t the worst idea he’d ever come up with. It’s a goal, a plan of sorts, and that’s important, because otherwise, he’d have no plan at all.

This safehouse has a weapons cache, and Clint goes for it first, because he’s turned all his weapons into S.H.I.E.L.D., except for a knife and his old circus bow, which is barely a weapon at all(once, it would have been a perfectly fine weapon, but now that Clint has seen more of the world’s horrors, it’s not quite enough).

He inhales sharply when he unlocks the weapons cabinet in the attic, because the last time he’d seen it, it just had a couple of handguns and a rifle. Now, there is a collapsible recurve bow there, not the exact type S.H.I.E.L.D. provides him with, but its commercial equivalent. He closes his eyes, and hears Phil smirking at him - “Sorry Barton, next time try not to drop your bow down a sewer.” “You know I’m better with a bow, Coulson,” he had whined right back, knowing that Phil certainly wasn’t going to go fetch him a bow at four in the morning. “Take the goddamn rifle, Barton,” Phil had instructed, and Clint took the rifle. They’d won that day. They always win, Agent Phil Coulson and Specialist Clint Barton. There was no compare. Later it became Clint and Natasha, and sometimes Natasha and Phil, and sometimes all three of them, but the Phil and Clint partnership was, and had always been, magic. They had the only 100% mission success rate on the books at S.H.I.E.L.D., even though they both knew that there had been sacrifices, and many lives lost for undignified causes.

Clint takes the bow.

In Kansas, he takes a mug from the small apartment. Phil had bandaged him up in the kitchen, and then they shared a cup of coffee in that mug, because there was only one.

\---

He decides to stay in the Albuquerque safe house for longer - the weather is nice, and he likes the doughnuts at the Flying Star Diner nearby. It’s down the street from the local university, and it’s sunny and pretty and normal and Clint feels like a little bit of normal could do him some good. And, he admits to himself, it was the last safe house he and Phil had spent time in, and that is kind of something important to him now. He likes this safehouse best - the others are generic, white walled, and filled with poster prints from Ikea or Target. This one has orange walls, and seems to be decorated with a smattering of odd mid century antiques. Phil seemed the most comfortable in this one. Clint never asked, but he suspected that this safehouse was probably Phil’s favourite safehouse too. There are two bedrooms, but there are biometric locks on them, and they do not open for Clint. He considers trying to break into them, but he doesn’t want to destroy Phil’s property, even though it does not matter now.

He is asleep on the couch on his second day in the Albuquerque safe house, Independence Day playing on VHS, when he hears the door click open. He is up on his feet in a second, bow drawn and pointing at the door when it creaks opens slowly and cautiously.

He does not move, but dares to hope, because who else would walk into Phil’s safe house but -

The light flips on, and Maria Hill is pointing a gun at him.

“Agent Hill.” Clint says, surprised, but deadpan, bow still drawn. He blinks and his eyes adjust to the light.

“Barton.” she nods briskly, not looking fazed at all, and lowers her gun.

Clint takes a bit longer to lower the bow, but he does. Hill closes the door behind her, putting her weapon away. Clint hits pause on the movie, and stands, slightly more awkwardly than he’d planned, and remains staring at her. Maria Hill is dressed in jeans, a blue sweater, and a light leather jacket, and she almost looks human, or at least not entirely robotic, carrying only a backpack and a ratty blanket. She tosses everything she’s carrying on the couch, and leans against the wall, appraising Clint right back.

“You mind telling me what you’re doing here, Hill?” Clint asks, rudely.

“What are _you_ doing here?” she responds immediately.

They stare at each other for a few tense seconds. Hill blinks first, but it’s a clear concession on her part, not a moment of weakness.

“I’m not on S.H.I.E.L.D. business,” she says, and Clint sees an odd softness in her eyes, and is suspicious, because if there ever was an inappropriate descriptor for Maria Hill, it’s _soft_.

“So, you’re not here to kill me?” Clint squints at her.

“What? No. You quit. You’re not a threat, or an asset, or anything.“ she says, pulling off her shoes, and walking to the kitchen. “Oh, you went grocery shopping. Can I have some milk?” she says, checking the expiry date on the carton in the fridge. She knows her way around the kitchen, Clint thinks. 

“You didn’t answer my question. What are you doing here?” Clint demands.

Maria pours herself a glass of milk, looking thoughtful. She smiles slyly. “I think I’m doing the same thing you are.”

“And what do you think I’m doing?”

“I think you’re doing a cross country tour of Phil Coulson’s safehouses.” Maria states, as if it were a fact, which it is.

Clint pauses. “You...are not incorrect. But why are you -”

“Probably the same reason you are?” Maria offers, looking surprisingly friendly, although Clint suspects that at least the milk mustache is a ploy to look non threatening.

“You’re in love with Phil?” Clint blurts out, surprised, before he realizes what he’d admitted. He blushes to the tips of his ears, stammering out an excuse, “I meant, you know - “

“Barton, I’m just going to pretend you never said anything at all about your relationship with Agent Coulson. I’m just his friend, and I've always been. And I guess - “ and now she shrugs a bit, and her sadness, her softness, actually seems genuine - “I just missed him.”

“You started from New York, right?” she asks. Clint toys with the television’s remote control, which he is somehow still holding. He doesn't answer.

“I started from California.” Maria offers. "Did you hear about Stark's mansion?"

Clint has heard about Stark's Malibu Mansion, and feels like he should contribute his opinion on the matter, but he's still having trouble processing Maria Hill's presence in his space. He feels a bit possessive of this safe house of Phil's somehow, like it has the most concentrated amount of _Phil_ still, and he wants to protect that.

She reaches over for the blanket she’d brought, grey and fuzzy and covered in polka dots, and Clint recognizes it. “That blanket’s from the safehouse in Fresno,” he finally says, not a bit accusingly.

She returns his glare calmly, “Yeah, it’s mine. Does this look like a Phil Coulson blanket to you?” No, Clint thinks, it looks like a skinned Muppet. It certainly doesn't look like a Maria Hill blanket either.

“Why did Phil have your blanket in his safe house?” Clint quizzes, well aware that he's being rude.

“Oh child, you’re so suspicious of everything.” Maria rolls her eyes. “They’re my safe houses too. Phil and I, we set them up together. We used to be field partners...well before your time. Maximized coverage, pooled resources, you know. It’s an economic thing.“

“You and Phil own safe houses together?” Clint feels oddly...jealous.

“It’s not like being married, Barton.” she reassures him, a wry and knowing smile dancing on her lips.

“I guess not.” he responds, sullenly.

“You have access to all of them, you know? You and Agent Romanov.”

“I know.“ Clint says, which he does know, but being trusted by a dead man isn’t much of a balm.

They sit in an awkward silence for a while, and Clint fidgets, until Maria stands up and heads back to the kitchen. “Can I use the butter? I’ll buy more tomorrow.” she asks. “Sure, whatever.” Clint responds, and decides to try to watch the rest of the movie, ignoring the clatter in the kitchen.

Clint is feeling a bit antsy watching the alien invasion on television - it is hitting a little bit too close to home right now - when the smell of browned butter wafts into the living room. “Hill, what are you doing?” he asks, as she walks out and hands him a glass of milk. He stares at it awkwardly and she scowls from the kitchen, “It’s just milk, Barton. I’m not a poisoner. I’d just shoot you in the back of the head if I wanted to kill you.” Clint feels his fingers twitch towards his bow, but he feels strangely reassured.

Hill returns with a plate of squarish cookies, dotted with powdered sugar, and sets the plate down between them on the couch. Clint stares at them stupidly.

“You bake?”

“No. That’s shortbread. It has three ingredients.”

Clint doesn’t think that baking is actually defined by the number of ingredients used, but he eats one, hesitantly, and it’s actually quite good. It is warm and buttery, and crumbles in his mouth, and he drinks the milk gratefully.

“So, I’m going to stay here tonight.” she states, not asks.

“Do you want me to leave?”

“Of course not. Er, were you sleeping on the couch?”

“Yeah, the rooms are locked.“ Clint says. "I didn't want to break in."

“Hey - “ Hill starts, and stops again.

“Yeah?”

“Nah, it’s nothing.”

“Okay.” Clint concedes. 

“No, it’s something. Look, Barton, if you wanted to maybe stop wandering across the United States, and perhaps settle down...you can stay here, you know? Or Peoria. Or Los Angeles. Or Fresno. Or Juneau. Or wherever?”

“In your safe houses?” Clint’s voice hitches - because these are all Agent Hill’s safehouses now that Phil’s dead.

“ _Your_ safe house. Pick one, I’ll transfer it to you. We’ll reprogram the locks. You know what I mean.”

Clint is silent. Is Maria Hill offering him...a house?

“I don’t know if it matters to you, but...um...he really liked this one, here in Albuquerque. We’ve owned it for a decade, and we spent a lot of time here when we were field agents. He decorated it mostly, from the local antique shops.” She smiles, “I said we should keep it generic, but all the houses here are sort of quirky, so it’s still generic for here, I suppose.”

“You know, I can afford a house.” Clint finally says, even though he knows that Hill knows that and it is a really weak answer to the generous offer of - well, it’s not really about the _house_ , is it?

Clint sits, staring at his empty glass of milk. He could settle down here. Maybe get a job, or even buy a little business, a small garage, or a wood shop. He has enough money in his accounts, even if he never truly believes it is really there, and actually his. He could live in this house, a house that is somehow so full of Phil, and build a life of his own, a normal life, a boring life. Oh god, he wants a boring life so much.

“Just think about it, okay?” Hill offers, breaking his trance. “I’m going to go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning. Um, the bedroom that I’m not in - that’s one Phil’s. The closer one. I’ll scan it open now and program you in tomorrow morning. We just keep them locked because...well, you’ll see.”

“Hey, thanks, Hill.” he says, and he thinks he actually means it.

\---

Clint stops the movie - he’s seen it at least twelve times anyway, and goes to the bedroom Hill had gestured at. He opens the door and steps in, hesitantly, gently thumbing at the light switch..

Oh my goodness, this is Phil’s room, he thinks. This room is likely a blatant disregard of standard safe house protocols, but except for the enhanced security, Clint is no longer decieved into thinking that this house is an actual safe house by S.H.I.E.L.D. standards. The walls are a light blue, and the furniture is plush and comfortable. The bed is wooden, and looks impossibly heavy, unlike the beds in the other safe houses, all somewhat flimsy and IKEA-esque.

And there are pictures on the heavy oak dresser - actual pictures. There is Agent Hill and Phil, graduating from field agent training, covered in dust and mud, and they both look so young. There is Phil and Director Fury, and Fury has both eyes, and he’s smiling, which is very strange. Phil, and a cat, a fat orange tabby. Phil and - oh. There’s a picture of him too. Clint hasn’t seen this picture before, but he remembers it. They’re in a safe house, in Juneau, and Natasha took the picture on a disposable camera, the other 31 shots prior filled with hasty images of an unexpected weapons cache. Phil is leaning over a coffee table, cleaning his gun, and Clint is sitting behind him on a couch, his legs bumping against Phil’s side. In the picture, Clint is laughing, joking, and he is looking at Phil - my god, had he always looked at Phil that way? And Phil is smiling - actually smiling, refusing to look at Clint, but his shoulders are relaxed and he looks happy.

Clint sighs, and falls into bed, toying with a old Captain America figure on the night stand. God, he misses Phil so much, but somehow, being here, being surrounded by the detritus of Phil’s life, the pain almost seems tolerable. S.H.I.E.L.D had buried Phil Coulson, and emptied his office, and then Phil Coulson was just dead, and everyone kept on moving on. But here, in this room - _Phil’s room_ \- Clint felt that he could maybe accept it all.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, Clint wakes up to the smell of hot coffee and something burning, which is 50% better than his mornings of late. In the kitchen, Maria Hill is poking absentmindedly at a frying pan with a spatula. He peers in the fridge. She has restocked the milk, butter and eggs.

“Are you making french toast?” Clint asks.

“It only has three ingredients.“ Hill explains, and Clint is really confused about the senior agent’s obsession with the number of ingredients in her food. He double checks the expiry date on the fire extinguisher under the sink, and satisfied, escapes under the full effort of Maria’s scowl.

She sets a mug of coffee, and a plate of french toast in front of him at the dining table. They dig the butter out of the wrapper; they don’t have a butter dish in this house. The french toast is serviceable. Clint can make it better, but he’s far too stunned by the idea of Maria Hill making him breakfast to say anything about it.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” Clint blurts.

Hill raises an impassive eyebrow at him. “I’m not. I’m made myself breakfast, and had leftovers.”

“You know what I mean. You offered me a house yesterday. This one. With Phil’s - ” and he swipes roughly at his eyes.

“Eat your breakfast, Barton.” she says without inflection, and dumps another small pile of eggy bread on his plate.

"You don't even like me." Clint tries again, because Maria is acting like a real human being, and he’s finding it too surreal, and wants to get the worst of it over with. Whatever the worst of it is.

"Well, that's true." Maria says with a flippant shrug, and does not stop shoveling food in her mouth. "I think you're difficult," she continues, after she finishes a mouthful. “Arrogant. You don’t think the rules apply to you.”

“Alright, you don’t have to be that honest. ” Clint says, and the table falls silent again. Clint forces himself to eat, despite his lack of appetite. “You blame me for Phil's death.”

Maria Hill sets the full force of her glare in his direction, the one that assures him that she still thinks that he's an idiot. “I’ve spent hours reviewing all the surveillance videos. You shot at Fury at point blank range, when he wasn't moving. right in the bulletproof vest. You shot at me when I was only eight feet away, and you missed completely. That's some god awful shooting for the greatest marksman in the world. You did the best you could, under the circumstances.”

Clint fidgets with his utensils, not wanting to meet Agent Hill’s eyes. “Agent Barton, in case that wasn’t obvious, I’m trying to tell you that I do not blame you for Phil’s death.”

“But why are you so nice to me?” Clint starts again, bringing the conversation back to what he really wants to know.

Maria sighs. "Because I get it. Or rather, you get it. Phil would have wanted this."

"For us to be friends?"

"No, you idiot. For you to try to be happy. I'm being nice to you because you really cared about Phil, and there’s not that many of us in the world. Everyone respects Phil - likes him even. But at the end of the day, there aren’t that many of us that are following the ghost of a dead man on a cross country trip of his safe houses, right?”

“So, you’re welcoming me to the We Love Phil Coulson club?” Clint offers.

“Exactly.” Maria says, and she lifts her glass of milk in a toast. That, at least, Clint can accept, so he grins, and reciprocates.

\---

She makes him go to the hardware store with her - the sink leaks, and it needs fixing, she says. Clint highly doubts that the stunningly competent Maria Hill actually needs his help to replace a small corner pipe, but he goes anyway. The hardware store is just a mile from the safehouse, and they walk. They are in the pipe section, Hill examining a stupidly large metal pipe cutter when an old man with a grey beard and a greasy workshirt walks in.

“Mary? Mary Hill?” the old man says, already marching over to their aisle.

“Johnny!” Maria squeals, and Barton marvels at her instant transition from stone cold S.H.I.E.L.D. agent to excitable suburban housewife as she leans warmly into the old man’s hug.

“So good to see you back in town, little miss. And how is your Phil doing?” Johnny says, beaming, and Clint buries a gasp deep down in his chest.

“Um...” she runs a finger through her short hair and sighs deeply, “Phillip is...we’re having some trouble? He might not be back.” Clint stares at her, and he can’t tell whether the melancholy in her eyes is acting, or real.

“Oh, honey.” Johnny says, hugging Hill - Mary Hill? - again. “Are you back here for good?”

“No, not this time.” she shrugs, “Sorry.”

Johnny notices Clint then, and looks at him appraisingly, up and down.

“Well, this one’s a looker all right, but he’s no Phillip.” and Clint’s heart feels like a rock, as if he didn’t already know he couldn’t ever measure up to Phil Coulson.

“Johnny, no! This is Clint Barton. He’s just an old friend. He’s helping me...fix up the house.” Hill says brightly.

“Are you handy?” he asks Clint, hand outstretched.

“Yeah, yeah, I guess?” Clint answers, shaking the man’s hand firmly.

“Well, we’re looking for a new hand at the shop, if you’re in town for a bit. And if you’re a pal of Mary’s, you’re a pal of mine.” Johnny nods, turning back to Hill. “And you still get that 20% discount - remind Ellie at the register. She’s only been here a year and you haven't visited, missy.”

Maria Hill leaves the store with a discounted brass corner pipe and a pair of pipe cutters. Clint Barton leaves with a new job.

“Want to tell me what that was all about, Hill?” Clint asks, still a bit dazed.

“You took the job, you tell me.”

“Mary Hill? And Phillip Coulson? What were you, married or something?”

“Phillip Hill.”

“What?”

“Mary and Phillip Hill. It’s a light cover for him, and it’s mostly my real identity, because I graduated from the University of New Mexico. And I worked at that hardware store for four years to pay for my tuition, and at the time, I told Johnny I was married to my high school sweetheart to ward off some less than smooth courting attempts from his son.” She lifts up the plastic bag, the tools clanging inside. “I’ve been getting the 20% employee discount for almost two decades.”

“Mary’s your real name?”

Maria shrugs and doesn’t answer.

“Phil is not really in the age range to be your high school sweetheart.” Clint points out.

All Clint gets is another shrug, and more silence.

“Huh.” Clint rubs his neck slowly. “I think I’m serious about the job.”

“You want to stay in Albuquerque?”

“It’s as good a place as any, right?”

“Phil - it’s where Phil thought he’d retire.”

“Is that why you bought the safehouse here?”

“Yeah. We figured whichever one of us actually lived until retirement age could keep it. And if we both miraculously made it, we could -” and here _she_ gets choked up.

Clint doesn’t say anything, and she looks like she really doesn't want him to, but he manages to reach out and pat her on the shoulder.

\---

Clint cooks dinner, and Maria looks a little bit impressed when he slides the perfectly parmesan crusted chicken out of the oven. He drops the Liz Phair CD in the CD player, because - well, why not.

“You like Liz Phair?” Maria asks, looking expectedly skeptical.

“Not really.” Clint admits, figuring that at this point, she probably deserves to know that he's been squirrelling away little bits of Phil into his daily routine.

“Is that the CD from the Ohio safehouse?”

“Yes?” 

“That’s mine. You can keep it. It doesn’t hold any sentimental value for me.”

“I didn’t say it had any - “ Clint begins to argue.

“Barton. You transported a Liz Phair CD over 500 miles, and you don’t like Liz Phair. I don’t need the explanation, but it clearly means more to you.“

They eat dinner in a companionable silence, mostly because Maria Hill is attacking the chicken parmesan with a vigor Clint has only seen employed on scolding especially sloppy junior agents. Maria washes the dishes, and then settles on the couch with a book, and a blanket and a pillow.

“Are you sleeping on the couch tonight?” Clint asks, because she looks like she’s planning on spending the night there.

“I have a hunch.” Maria admits, with a guilty smile.

“About what?”

“Never mind, it’s really silly.”

“It’s Phil, isn’t it?” Clint guesses. “You think he’s alive, don’t you?”

Maria grins, conspiratorially. “We come here. Or we try, at least. A week, every year, in the summer. The past couple years have been too busy, but we manage once every three years or so.”

“Why?”

“My birthday.” Maria says, a genuine smile creeping slowly on her face. “We throw a party here. We invite the guys from the store, and a few of my old friends from college show up. Tequila and party hats, the works.”

Clint laughs at that, the first real laugh he’s had in months, because the thought of Maria Hill in a party hat is a little too hilarious to resist. Maria Hill as a conspiracy theorist is also too hilarious, but the idea that Phil might just come waltzing through that door, because it’s Maria’s birthday and time for their annual vacation is a ridiculous conspiracy theory that he decides he wants to believe in too.

“Do you know how to bake anything else but shortbread?” Clint asks, instead.

“I don’t know how to cook anything with more than five ingredients.”

“Is it a thing?”

“It is a thing.” Maria confirms. “Phil can’t cook at all, so don’t give me crap.”

Somehow, Maria using the present tense to talk about Phil makes Clint feel a little bit better, even though he’s also pretty certain that Phil is quite dead.  “So, it’s your birthday today?” Clint asks, pulling on his sneakers.

“It is. Where are you going?”

“I’m going to the corner store for baking powder, marshmallows and a cake pan. I’m going to bake you a cake.”

“You...bake?” Maria stammers.

“Oh, yes.” Clint grins, saluting as the door shuts behind him.

Clint makes a royal mess of the kitchen, partially because it was obviously arranged by two people who never cook. Maria tries to help, but Clint threatens her with a spatula, which makes her laugh enough to beat a hasty retreat.

The cake is large, and well frosted, and Clint wishes that he had a camera to capture Maria Hill's squeal of delight when he carts it out to the living room. If he were still at S.H.I.E.L.D., it would be prime blackmail material. She refuses to let him light any candles. "I'm not telling you how old I am, and my wish probably won't come true anyway." Clint cuts her a gigantic slice, and she attacks it with glee, and Clint thinks - this is _nice_ , sitting in a safe house with a friend, eating birthday cake.

“Hey, Barton?” she says, pausing the assault on her cake for a second. “Don’t read too much into it, but I do like having you around.”

“You can call me Clint, if you like.” Clint offers, because he’s had a pretty good day, all things considered.

“Okay. Um, I don’t really like being called Maria.”

“Will do, Agent Hill.”

“Thanks, Clint.”

Clint isn’t entirely sure what has possessed him, but Maria is smiling, and she is pretty, and she has marshmallow frosting on her nose, and it feels perfectly natural to reach over and wipe the white fluff off her face, and then he’s close - much too close - and it is just a instinctual response to reach out and cling onto the only person who’s understood him lately. Surprisingly, she does not break his nose. Even more surprisingly, she kisses back.

It doesn’t take long for Clint to pull her tank top off, and her to do the same with his t-shirt, with a unprecedented amount of enthusiasm. They fall on the couch, cake and frosting forgotten, and she is soft and warm and every bone in Clint’s body responds to the comforting human touch. She tastes like frosting and vanilla, which is unexpected and irrepressibly hot(not that he'd ever thought about Maria Hill that way, but he'd have expected gunpowder perhaps, not _marshmallows_ ), and Clint’s brain is tired and overtaxed and doesn’t want to try to overthink the situation. Maria straddles him, grinding over his hard cock, and Clint has a moment of wonder -  jesus, is this really happening? She takes off her own bra, swatting his currently clumsy hands away, and Clint has a moment of panic - is she going to eat me after we’re done, like a praying mantis?

“Is this pity sex?” Clint blurts out, because his pillow talk capabilities are decidedly subpar.

“Is it?” Maria replies, hovering only inches from his face. “That’s a good question, actually.”

“Are you doing this because Phil would have wanted it?” Clint clarifies, which makes some sort of awkward sense in his head. Perhaps like some sort of barbaric tradition where a dead man’s wife is passed onto his brother instead.

Maria laughs, a bit unkindly. “No, this is not pity sex, because this is definitely not going to be any kind of sex,” she sighs, climbing off Clint with little grace, and reaching around him for her shirt.

“This gets filed away into the ‘never mention again’ category, right?” Clint mumbles, searching between the couch cushions for his own clothing, as his ego rapidly deflates in parallel with the other currently relevant parts.

“Correct, Barton.” Maria answers curtly. “Don’t overthink it. We’re both lonely. We both missed Phil. Psychologically, it’s natural for humans to seek comfort. And, you made me cake and I really like cake.” she tries to joke.

“I’m sorry.” Clint exhales tensely, launching himself off the couch to pace in front of the couch. “I just can’t stop thinking about him. How he died, how pointlessly.”

“Pointlessly? Some people might say he saved New York. They say he died a hero.” Maria states. She is calm now, if still a bit flushed, having rearranged herself on the couch under her blanket, which she has unfolded and refolded and unfolded at least three times.

“I’m pretty sure I didn’t have to attack the helicarrier and Phil didn’t have to die just so Stark and Captain America would start getting along.” Clint points out, sinking back on the opposite end of the couch.

“Oooh, Barton, do you hear that?” Maria says, exaggeratedly cupping her hand around her left ear.

“Hear what?”

“Your self loathing tendencies. They’re very loud.”

Clint chuckles, a bit sadly, and a bit relieved. “Do _you_ think he died as a hero? Or a martyr?”

Maria exhales, and sinks her face into her hands for a second, before looking back to Clint. “I don’t believe in heroes or martyrs. He just died. A lot of people died.”

She does not finish the thought, does not bother to tell Clint how pointless Phil Coulson’s death was. Many people died during the Battle of New York, and only a small percentage of them could quantifiably be called “heroes”. The rest died as perfectly ordinary people, on their way to a cup of coffee, to a meeting, or to pick their children up from daycare. They were all people, transcendent in the way only humans can be, and they lived lives, some of which were fulfilling and brilliant, but still, no further meaning was prescribed to the world because of their deaths. In all certainty, they did not die for the greater good of man, nor as a noble sacrifice for humanity. They lived, and then they died, and the world did not stop.

She wraps her arms around her knees, and for a moment, she doesn’t look a lot like Agent Maria Hill, Assistant Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. She just looks like Maria, Phil’s friend, and now, perhaps Clint’s too.

“Hey,” Clint starts, lifting his arm over the edge of the couch and pulling Maria’s blanket over to his lap. “No sex, but I’m still up for cuddling, if you're into that.”

Maria narrows her eyes, but she does scoot herself over next to Clint, leaning up against his side, as he draws the blanket up around them. “Only because you just stole my blanket, and this also goes into the ‘never mention again’ category. No one outside this safe house can know that I’m a cuddler.”

The DVR still holds pre-recorded episodes of Supernanny, and Clint and Maria wordlessly agree not to watch them, or to write over the episodes. They watch reruns of old Dog Cops episodes that Maria had recorded on her last stint in the safe house, and fall asleep at three in the morning, when the sugar high wears off.

When Clint wakes up to the noises of Maria puttering around the living room, Phil is still not there. “What are you going to do now?” Clint asks Maria, watching her pack her duffle bag before she drops it back on the couch, by his feet.

“I’m going to go say goodbye to Johnny at the store, and tell him that you’re a good friend of mine and Phil’s and not to give you a hard time. Which means he’ll probably give you a hard time, but that’s how he shows he cares.”

“And then?” Clint asks.

“Then I’m going to go back to work.” Maria says, and if her voice catches in her throat a bit, Clint is too polite to mention it. _  
_


	3. Chapter 3

One month after Clint Barton arrives in Albuquerque, Maria comes back for a day, moves her stuff out of her room, and hands him the deed to the house. She also hands him an offer letter from S.H.I.E.L.D. that promises another pay raise, another promotion, and another clearance level. Clint laughs, and immediately tosses it into his recycling bin, ignoring the pinched look on Maria’s face.

He works four days a week at the hardware store and lets the repetitious motion of checking customers out at the register clear his mind, the same way he’d let Phil’s voice guide him through dark tunnels and minefields.

Two months after Clint Barton arrives in Albuquerque, he goes in a date with a nice woman from Santa Fe, and they make out on the comfortable orange couch that matches the orange walls, and she makes him laugh, and he forgets for a moment, forgets that he used to be Agent Barton, forgets that he used to be Hawkeye, thinks for a moment that he's just a regular guy in a small town who works in a hardware store. But, when she starts running her hands under his shirt, Clint decides that he can’t bring her to his room, because it is still a room that belongs to a dead man. Natasha sends him a postcard from Argentina. He tosses it into his recycling bin as well.

He works five days a week at the hardware store now, learns the regular customers' names, lets his co-worker Ellie, who is 19 and could be a young Maria Hill, call him an old man. He calls her “kid.”

Three months after Clint Barton arrives in Albuquerque, he finally has a dream without Loki in it.

He works six days a week at the hardware store. The steady and regular lifting of the store’s inventory shipments works out a set of muscles that aren’t dissimilar from the muscles used to pull a bowstring taut, but the soreness it lends at the end of the day feels more correct, feels like a honest day’s work.

Four months after Clint Barton arrives in Albuquerque, he finally has a dream without Phil in it, and he wakes up terrified and hollow. That night, he drinks more than he should and he takes home a boy he meets at a bar near the University of New Mexico. But when he’s finally staring at the boy, who is preening seductively on Maria’s old bed, and the boy calls him “Daddy,” he promptly walks out of the room, makes and drinks two cups of coffee, and drives the boy back to - oh god, the dorms - in pained silence.

Natasha sends him a postcard from Bucharest. He pins it up on a corkboard in the kitchen, but he does not write back.

Five months after Clint Barton arrives in Albuquerque, Johnny of Johnny’s Hardware retires after finding out that he has terminal cancer, and Clint Barton buys the store, alarmed at how much money he apparently has after over a decade of hazard pay and free lodging. Johnny refuses chemotherapy, takes a tour of Europe, and dies in Rome from a heart attack likely brought on by a gorgeous and sultry fifty year old woman in a red dress straddling his lap for the fourth time that day.

Clint calls Maria Hill to let her know, but she already knows, and pulls some strings to get the body back to Albuquerque with minimal fuss. She stands next to him at the funeral, and when Clint makes a morbid joke about _déjà vu_ , points out that it is the second funeral they've attended together in eight months, she frowns and asks him if he’ll come back to S.H.I.E.L.D now. He tries not to laugh in her face.

Six months after Clint Barton arrives in Albuquerque, he meets an age appropriate tourist in town for the weekend, and follows him back to his hotel room. He doesn’t get the man’s number, and doesn’t offer his own, and when he steps back into the safe house the next morning, he doesn’t feel compelled to apologize to anyone in particular.

He doesn't dream about Phil much anymore, and when he wakes up in the morning, he doesn't feel anything but sleepy.

Another offer letter from S.H.I.E.L.D. drops into his physical mailbox that promises another pay raise, another promotion, and another clearance level, and a post it note from Maria Hill that says “Please take it.” Clint puts the letter through his shredder.

Seven months after Clint Barton arrives in Albuquerque, he realizes that he hasn’t played the Liz Phair CD in at least a couple months. He brings it into the hardware store, and Ellie, his sole employee, wrinkles her nose at it and says “Really, boss? I think my mom has this CD.”

\---

Clint is working alone behind the counter at Sherwood Hardware when the ‘ding’ that announces a new arrival chimes. Everyone in town still calls it Johnny’s Hardware, and Clint hasn’t even changed the sign outside, and he doesn’t think he will. Still, it is Sherwood Hardware on paper now, and he likes the sound of it. He likes the door chime too, and he raises his head in greeting only to find Maria Hill in his face, looking wide eyed and a bit crazed.  

“Did you...just fly here from New York?” Clint asks, because there are dark bags under her eyes, and she smells like fuel and a pilot’s cabin(a little bit sterile, a little bit plasticy). Outside, he can see an olive green Air Force jeep idle its engine.

In response, Maria steps around the counter smoothly, and drags him to the small office at the back of the store with purpose.

“No bugs, no cameras?” she demands, and Clint nods, a bit annoyed. Of course not, he’s gone civilian, but he hasn’t gone soft.

She takes a deep breath, and the words spill out of her mouth before she exhales. “Phil is alive.”

Clint stares at Maria as she continues talking. “I’ve been trying to get you to come back to S.H.I.E.L.D., because he’s fucking alive, but I couldn’t fucking tell you because it’s Level 7 classified, you fucking idiot.”

“Why are you just telling me now, then?” Clint asks, but he already knows, because his friendship with Maria is still tentative and careful, and she has always been a company man.

“So you wouldn’t flip out when - “

And right then, the door chimes again, and five minutes ago, Clint would have thought that it was the ghost of Phil Coulson, and promptly checked himself into psychiatric care, but now, it is actually just Phil Coulson. It’s Phil, and he looks different somehow, thinner under his suit, a bit paler, but it’s Phil, and he’s smiling a soft, kind smile, and Clint can’t breathe.

“Goddammit.” Maria swears, as a cab speeds away from the curb. She storms out past Phil, and waves at the airman in the Jeep to cut the engine.

Clint doesn’t know how he manages to move, but his hands are trembling, and he can barely feel his legs as he walks towards Phil, who is standing still by the door, a forlorn but steady look on his face.

It’s the first time they’ve ever hugged, really.

“I missed you.” Clint mumbles, his eyes feeling damp, but the strong, heavy presence of Phil stills his shaking. Phil is corporeal, and stable, and Phil is his rock, and Phil is here.  

“I missed you too.” Phil says, letting’s Clint’s head rest on his shoulder, which doesn’t feel as firm as before, but Clint does not care.

“You motherfucker, how could you do this to me?” Clint swears, but he’s already laughing a little, feeling lightheaded and a bit delirious.

“I’m sorry.” Phil says.

“Don’t you know how much I loved you?” The words spill out of Clint’s mouth before he can stop them, and the subtle tightening of Phil’s shoulders and back confirm that those words should never, ever have left his mouth. Missed - he’d meant to say, _missed_ , not _loved_.

But even still, the tense shocks him - _loved_ , he had said - he had loved a dead man. He had loved his former handler, loved the man that died on the helicarrier, loved a man when he was Clint Barton, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, archer, Hawkeye. Now, he’s just Clint Barton, resident of Albuquerque, owner of Sherwood Hardware, and Phil Coulson is back, and Clint had just gotten used to a life without Phil Coulson in it.

“I love you too, of course.” Phil answers promptly, but Clint already knows that Phil never meant it the same way. I love you like a brother, perhaps, but not I love you. Phil casually rubs a small half circle on Clint’s back, reassuringly.

“Yeah, I love you, man.” Clint tries to cover up, giving Phil one last squeeze, and slapping his back in an obnoxiously dude-bro manner that even makes him cringe inwardly. Maria has crept back behind the counter now, and is closing out the register and awkwardly averting her eyes. Clint looks over at her, questioningly. “I think maybe you should close early today. Or I can handle the register for the next couple hours, if you like...” she offers.

“I’m not going to make you work in my store, Agent Hill.” Clint groans. “Both of you, you’re coming back to the house, and I’m making you dinner, and you’re answering some of my goddamn questions.”

The ride back to the safe house - it’s now just Clint’s house, but he still calls it the safe house in his head - is quiet. They are chauffeured by a clean cut airman from the nearby Air Force base, who salutes to Agent Hill and nods briskly at Clint and Phil.

Clint actually impresses himself with how quickly he re-adjusts his world view around this new piece of information. It is an important piece of information. On one hand, Phil Coulson is alive. On the other, now that he has made an unnecessary confession to the man he loves - _loved_ \- and has not had the notion responded in kind, the thought is actually quite cathartic. Surprisingly, Clint thinks, a “no” is far easier than a “what if.”

So, now he just has his friend Phil Coulson, back from the dead, and he might looks a bit tired and a little bit old and a little bit sad, but Phil is not _dead_ , and Clint can work with that just fine.

\---

Clint cooks dinner, and Maria tries to help and isn’t useful, and Phil tries to help and is even worse. Maria decides to set the table, as Phil lingers unhelpfully in the kitchen.

“You look good.” Phil finally mumbles, and it is such a stupidly nonchalant phrase for a man who’s just come back to life that Clint can’t help laughing, a heavy sort of belly laugh that makes his body shake and his eyes water up. When he finishes, he looks at Phil incredulously and Phil smiles, the tension gone from his shoulders.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was alive earlier. To be fair, I’ve only been on my feet for about a week.” Phil says, and Clint finally notices how thin Phil has gotten, how his eyes and cheeks have hollowed out. Phil looks genuinely weak and the thought of Phil Coulson being _weak_ sits in Clint’s heart like a rock.

“Fuck.” Clint curses, roughly running his hand through his hair.

“It’s why Maria didn’t tell you either. After someone’s been in a coma for nine months, she didn’t really want to raise your hopes. That and the clearance level issue.”

“To be fair, he looks really good for someone in a coma for nine months. Fury and I sent many fruit baskets to the medical R&D department.” Maria interjects. “Where did you stash the placemats?”

“I’m still not working for S.H.I.E.L.D.. I don’t have a clearance level, you know.” Clint reminds them both.

“Maria cares about S.H.I.E.L.D. more than she cares about you. I - well, I don’t.“ Phil says, the admission sounding a bit wrought from a place he’d rather not offer up yet, but Clint will take it. He’ll take anything Phil offers, he decides, even if it’s just a soft smile as Clint awkwardly reaches around Phil for a wooden spoon. He mulls over Phil’s presence as he stirs the sauce, considers the timeline and realizes that Phil must have come to Albuquerque the moment he was released from Medical.

“How did you get here?” Clint asks, because Phil barely looks like he’s healthy enough to stand up, much less travel.

“I flew.” Phil answers, as if it were obvious.

“Surely S.H.I.E.L.D hasn’t cleared you for anything more than light desk duty.” Clint sighs, because he doesn’t like the idea of Phil piloting anything right now.

“I’m not cleared for anything at all. I meant I flew economy, on American Airlines.” Phil smiles. “They lost my bags.”

“Um, I left your room the way it was. You still have clothes here.” Clint says, and he quashes his own attempt to blurt out that he knows exactly what is in Phil’s wardrobe, because he’s stood in front of the closet for too many hours, cataloguing the handful of shirts, and the dark grey suit, and his favourite - the soft sweaters and t-shirts and jeans that he’s never really seen Phil wear.

“I took Maria’s room,” Clint says, which is sort of a lie, because his personal belongings are in Maria’s former room, but he has still spent many nights curled up on Phil’s bed, in Phil’s room, trying to imagine that Phil might walk in at any moment. Now that Phil has actually walked in, Clint is feeling a bit awkward about that. He's made a habit of missing Phil, made thinking about Phil every day part of his routine, but honestly, he'd also given up on imagining that Phil wasn't actually dead. Clint is prone to hoping, but he's also been busy with the store and he feels like a traitor for having been too busy to continue just the   _hoping_.

Phil looks around the house. “You’ve left the place exactly as it was.”

“I rearranged the kitchen a lot.” Clint says. He doesn't mention the five gallons of purple paint in the garage, doesn't say that he's been avoiding painting over the orange walls, because Phil has wanted them orange and he hadn’t been ready for the change yet. “Mostly, I’ve been busy with the hardware store, and I like how you and Hill set it up.” He pauses, realizing that Maria had given him the house under significantly different circumstances. “Er, if you want the house back, I don’t mind. She gave it to me when we both thought you were dead.”

“No, it’s yours.” Phil says, definitively. “Albuquerque suits you.”

It is meant to be comforting, Clint thinks, and he agrees that Albuquerque has suited him quite nicely, but at the same time, he can’t help but be disappointed that Phil doesn’t seem interested in recruiting him back to S.H.I.E.L.D. But the disappointment slides off more easily than he’d anticipated. He doesn’t think about SHIELD much now, doesn’t think about missions and stakeouts when he is unloading a truck at the store, doesn’t think of Phil when he’s chatting with his customers. That realization stops him in his tracks, almost as certainly as the realization he’d had years ago, when he first noticed that that he'd fallen in love with Phil.

They eat dinner companionably, Maria’s presence easing the conversation into unclassified S.H.I.E.L.D. gossip and jokes about Nick Fury, and Clint watches Phil relax and laugh, and feels a little bit lighter and a little bit more conflicted, all at the same time.

Phil takes his bedroom(Clint does manage to covertly remove the overt signs of his constant presence in it), Maria insists on taking the couch, and Clint lies awake in Maria’s room, staring at the smattering of glow in the dark stars that dot the ceiling. He wonders why she placed them there now, he wonders if Phil might have, a younger Phil more prone to delight and wonder and silly pranks. He can’t help the pang of jealousy that runs through his veins when he dwells on Maria and Phil’s friendship, envies the fact that she’s seen him with his guard down far more than Clint ever have, perhaps ever will.

He picks up his phone, dials one of the two numbers that is etched into his heart.

“Clint, are you okay?” the comfortingly familiar voice answers, worried.

“Tasha, I’m sorry I’ve been a dick.” he mumbles and silently grateful that even now, she still can worry about him.

“You’d have to be much more of an asshole than that to get rid of me, Barton.” she says, and he laughs, and his world starts to piece itself back together. “I’m headed out on a two week mission tomorrow morning, but I’m coming to visit after that. The safe house with the orange walls, right?"

By the time Clint hangs up the phone, it is two in the morning, and Natasha has fallen asleep on the other side of the line.

He sleeps soundly, without dreams, for the first time in months.


	4. Chapter 4

Clint sleeps for eleven hours. When he wakes up, it is to the smell of grilled cheese sandwiches and coffee, and the sound of Maria Hill cursing because he’s had several months to rearrange the kitchen, and she probably can’t find the lid for the frying pan. He pulls on a pair of cargo pants, and walks outside to see Phil sitting at the kitchen table in a vintage Captain America t-shirt and jeans, and his throat goes dry. The shirt hangs a bit loosely on his frame, but it is soft and thin and Clint can’t look away because Phil looks fragile, and the thought of the indomitable Phil Coulson being reduced to a fragile slip of a man terrifies him.

Maria saves him then, placing three plates and three cups of coffee down on the table with a head waitress’ efficiency. “Eat up, boys. It’s the Mary Hill special.” she smirks, grabbing a seat herself.

“It’s just Velveeta and wheat bread.” Phil explains to Clint, catching him looking skeptically at the sandwich. Clint takes a bite, and the sandwich is surprisingly comforting in the way that only processed cheese can be.

“Clint, can you give me a ride to the airfield after lunch? I only took twenty four hours of leave.” Maria asks, picking the crust off her bread.

“I should catch a ride back to New York with you.” Phil says, and Maria frowns, looking at Clint meaningfully.

Clint isn’t sure what possesses him in that moment, but he says “You should stay, Phil.”

Phil starts to protest, but the offer has already been made, so Clint barrels on - “You’re on medical leave for like what - a couple more weeks?”

“Three weeks. He’s not even cleared for light desk duty.” Maria answers.

Phil fidgets in his seat, and Clint blinks at seeing his formerly stoic handler so nervous.

“I have physical therapy - “ Phil starts.

“- Our local office here will take care of that. Fury already approved it this morning.” Maria finishes.

Phil scowls at Maria, letting his brief annoyance shine through. She busies herself clearing the table, taking the plate out from under Clint’s half finished sandwich. Phil sits silently, as Maria makes loud noises in the general direction of the dishwasher. “I don’t want to be any trouble.” Phil finally says, to Clint.

What Clint wants to say is that there is really no way Phil could ever be any sort of trouble in his life, that he’ll take whatever Phil has to offer, even if it’s just him sitting on the couch, reading a book, although he certainly wouldn't mind if more jeans and soft t-shirts made an appearance too.

What he actually does say, he thinks, is better.

“Come help me at the store for a couple weeks. I could use someone with an analytical eye to take a look at my books.” Clint says, and the slow smile on Phil’s face reassures him that he’s correct.

“Not too much work. Maybe a couple hours a day at most.” Maria interrupts, but she has a mischievous look in her eyes and Phil rolls his eyes at her.

Clint drives Maria to the Air Force Base, and she hugs both of them goodbye, which is a strange feeling for Clint, because a huggy Maria Hill may signal the apocalypse. Phil climbs back into the passenger seat of Clint’s old truck.

Phil stays.

\---

Clint chatters brightly about his life in New Mexico, because a man in a coma for nine months doesn’t generally have a lot in the way of life updates. He watches Phil out of the corner of his eye, makes flippant jokes when Phil politely offers up follow up questions about the store and Albuquerque weather. Eventually, Phil settles into Clint’s desk at the hardware store, going through the two months of accounting that Clint had mostly neglected to do.

Clint is fairly wrapped up in his own feelings regarding Phil’s return from the dead, and perhaps even more focused on avoiding having feelings about talking about his feelings regarding Phil’s return from the dead, so he’s a bit blindsided when Phil not only points out the elephant in the room, but saddles it and crosses the Alps with it.

“So, you said you used to love me.” Phil says, in the exact same tone he’d use to point out that Clint’s accounting was a little bit off last month, or in mentioning that the sky happened to be blue today. Clint doesn’t believe his ears, thinks it’s a trick of the odd echo that sometimes occurs between his small office and the spot behind the register, where he is currently trying to remain standing.

“You can’t just not talk to me about this, Clint.” Phil says, and Clint hears that just fine.

“Er, what did you say?” Clint stammers, trying to buy a little time to compose himself.

“You said you used to love me?” Phil repeats, with the same unassuming tone, which frustrates Clint, the same way it always has.

It takes Clint five minutes to walk to the stock room and dismiss Ellie, with pay, for the rest of the day. Clint flips the “OPEN” sign on the door to “CLOSED,” and turns off the store’s lights before stepping back into his office. “You’re right, I did.” Clint admits, leaning over his own desk, forcing himself to look Phil in the eye. Phil’s eyes are as kind as they’ve always been, but they look older now, and much sadder.

“Is there any chance you still might?” Phil ventures, looking a little bit hopeful.

Clint pauses. “I think I always will.” he says, but his heart doesn’t skip a beat as he says it, and as the words fall from his lips, he realizes that it’s just an answer. An honest statement, not an offer. Perhaps, it is an apology.

“There’s a but, isn’t there?” Phil says, because of course he can read Clint, always has, always will. He knows the hesitant note and the unspoken pause behind Clint’s declaration, understands that the use of past tense is not a grammatical error.

“Phil. What are you trying to get to? What do you want?”

“I’m trying to tell you that I’ve been in love with you for years, and the idea of you reciprocating that was unthinkable, until yesterday. But now I’m sitting here, watching you run Johnny's Hardware, seeing you have this life out here in the desert, and...”

"Sherwood Hardware, I just haven't changed the sign. Wait, you like me?” Clint asks, because he wants the confirmation, even though he sensed that it was coming anyway. He’s not that emotionally stunted; he's had a good night's sleep to put the puzzle pieces together, figured that if one of the first things Phil decided to do after a nine month coma was fly economy class to Albuquerque - well, that means _something_ , doesn’t it?

“It’s a bit beyond like, Barton. Did you hear the second half? You’re happy here, aren’t you?”

“I am, but -” Clint laughs, when he realizes what Phil is saying, and laughs again because he realizes he agrees. He’s built this semblance of an ordinary life in Phil’s safe house, assembled all the parts of normalcy in Maria’s college town, and he’s come to believe that it is his too, because it is. He owns a hardware store. He has a house. He has a backyard and a lawnmower and a fridge and seven mixing bowls and a plunger. And he’s been in love with Phil for a long time, loved the sound of Phil’s steady voice in his ear during long stakeouts, loved the way Phil’s suits skim lightly over his arms, loves Phil - but now that Phil is here, Phil is alive, Phil loves him too, he just isn’t sure whether he’d still choose _love_.

And so it goes - the years of seemingly unrequited longing, the years of teasing from Natasha, the years of waiting by bedsides after bad missions - it wraps up in an anticlimactic conversation in a messy office in the back of a hardware store, and Clint can’t help but find it hilarious.

“Like two ships passing each other in the night.“ Clint chortles. “We’re not really the same people we were ten months ago, are we?”

“For one, I only have about 50% of the lung capacity I had ten months ago.” Phil tries to joke, but Clint doesn’t find that one funny. “I’m going back to S.H.I.E.L.D, Clint. I'm putting together a new team. I’m going to go to physical therapy, and I’ll have months of light desk duty in front of me, and possibly another surgery, but I’m going to go back to New York.” Phil says, and Clint wants to beg him to stay, beg him to give him a chance, but he can’t, because Agent Coulson is an irrevocable part of Phil, runs through his blood, settles through his bones and just _is_. And Clint doesn't have the right to ask Phil to stay, any more than Phil has the right to ask him to return to S.H.I.E.L.D..

“And I’m going to run Sherwood Hardware.” Clint says, and the certainty he can hear in his own voice surprises even him. ”You know, I’ve never had a chance at anything normal before, Phil.”

“I know.” Phil replies sadly. “You deserve this.”

Clint reaches out for Phil's hand then, because it feels like a natural denouement to the painful conversation. Phil's hand is warm where Clint grabs it, and they sit like that for a few beats, still separated by the heavy steel desk, and Clint decides that he does want to be a tiny bit selfish, wants at least a little bit of time where he really could have it all.

“Give me three weeks.” Clint says, trying not to sound like he’s pleading.

“Three weeks of what?”

“Of _you_. You're on medical leave for that long. Let me take you on a date. Let’s give this a shot, and maybe it works and maybe it doesn’t, but in three weeks, you'll go back to New York and report back to duty, so why not?" It’s a proposition, certainly, but it’s an honest one.

"You want a relationship with an end date?” Phil asks, skeptical. 

“A very fast approaching end date, so if you’d like to try this, you might want to stop wasting time and kiss me.” Clint says, braver now, because if he’s already dealt with Phil’s death once, he can certainly take on any possible permutation of a rejection.

“Just so we’re clear, I haven’t been medically cleared for much more than kissing.“

“I can work with that - ” Clint starts, but Phil steps around the desk and already in his space, and he is skinnier than he used to be, but the day old stubble on his face is pleasantly scratchy and his hands are less certain, but his lips make up the gap in certainties well.

Phil pulls away briefly, as Clint tries not to whine about the separation. "I should tell you that a bunch of people in this town think I'm married to Maria Hill."

"Actually, you got divorced a few months ago. Hill updated everyone at Johnny's funeral."

"Well, then." Phil grins. "Three weeks with the proprietor of Johnny's Hardware should give them plenty to talk about."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who's been following along. I know it's been a downer, but I was dealing with some pretty depressing things when I started writing the story, so it all just came out. The next chapter is fluffy and everything is fixed, because this is fanfic, not real life.

It scares Clint how easy it is to fall into old habits, how he finds himself automatically making Phil’s coffee the way he likes it, finds himself no longer adding blueberries to his grocery shopping because Phil doesn’t like blueberries, finds himself letting Phil back into his life as if he’d never been gone.

He still has to run the store, but Ellie says that she has a couple friends that need jobs, so Clint hires them too, and sits on the loading dock with Phil, both of them kicking their feet in the air, a couple feet from the ground. Clint breathes in the balmy summer air, lets his hand rest on Phil’s, fidgets with the bones in Phil’s fingers that still poke through his transparent skin, and sees the tranquility in Phil’s eyes, and still doesn’t understand it.

Clint insists on driving Phil to his physical therapy appointments every day, watches as Phil grimaces in pain and anger as he struggles to do things that would have been thoughtlessly easy just one year ago. Phil’s eyes are still patient and steady, even when every one of the muscles he’s fighting to regain looks like it is being taxed to exhaustion, and Clint wonders what it is that Phil seems to have this boundless trust in.

They spend the first week in a hazy state of domesticity, which Clint tries not to overthink. They dance around each other, a bit awkwardly, like two people getting to know each other again. Clint cooks, and Phil reads the newspaper.  But Clint is still hesitant when he kisses Phil, not because Phil’s body isn’t anywhere near its physical peak, but because he can’t let go enough to forget that in a couple weeks, Phil will be gone.

In the second week, Clint catches Phil staring at his bow, which is resting near the television.

"She's unstrung." Phil says.

"I haven't used it in a year." Clint knows that Phil understands his meaning, wouldn't miss that he'd said _it_ instead of _her_.

At the end of the second week, Clint wakes up, hears the door click open downstairs, and realizes that his bow is not even remotely within reach. It is still downstairs, resting by the television, still unstrung. It’s not a huge problem, he tries to reassure himself, knows that he is perfectly lethal with anything within reach, the bedside lamp, the half empty glass of water, the alarm clock, Phil’s glasses - and Phil is still asleep, snoring gently, and he looks so small, and Clint hates himself for even thinking that he might have failed to protect Phil.

His panic is quelled by the voice that calls out - “It’s me, Clint.” Natasha says, taking her shoes off loudly on purpose. “Don’t wake up, I’m just gonna make coffee.”

Clint looks at the sleeping body of his temporary boyfriend, and considers entangling himself with Phil again, but he hasn’t seen Natasha in almost a year, and he misses her. He crawls out of bed, being careful not to jostle Phil, and pulls on a pair of sweatpants before wandering outside.

He’s surprised to see Maria Hill in the kitchen with Natasha, who is busy dumping out a coffee filter full of coffee grounds into the sink and cursing lightly at the garbage disposal. Maria is sitting on the counter, her shoes kicked off and her right wrist in a cast. She waves it at him, “Desk duty for a week, and it was because of something stupid and I don’t want to talk about it.”

Clint looks at Natasha, who is moving the way she does when her ribs are sore and bandaged,, but the way she hugs him back, and wipes her coffee stained fingers off on his pants, assures him that she’d missed him too.

“Agent Hill. I didn’t know you were coming in. Tasha and I can take the couch.” Clint offers, as Natasha lets out a small snort.

“It’s fine, we’ll share my old room. We’re only here tonight.” Maria says, and Clint notices the flicker of amusement on Natasha’s face and realizes that he’s not the only one with interesting news. “And er, Phil and I talk, so you don’t have to pretend that you aren’t sleeping in the same bed.”

“How is Phil?” Natasha asks, as she distributes the three cups of coffee and herds Clint over to the couch. Maria takes Clint’s other side, and his skull itches, which means that he’s about to get ganged up on.

"Well, he's sleeping." Clint answers, because what else can he say? He had two weeks of a life he’d thought he always wanted - a perfectly normal life with Phil, a perfectly ordinary life with late night diner visits, and Phil’s perfect tendency to leave socks all over the place even though he’s perfectly meticulous about everything else. How can he tell Maria and Natasha that, when he knows that it is temporary, knows that it’s not what Phil wants too, knows that in a week, he will only be Clint Barton, owner-proprietor of Sherwood Hardware, and Phil will be Agent Coulson again.

“Let’s make this easy, shall we?” Maria says. “How is his physical therapy?”

“The doctors say that following his current regimen, he’ll be pretty functional in a couple months.”

“And his weight?”

“He’s gained 15 pounds, which he needed. And it’s mostly putting muscle back on.”

“Mentally?” Natasha prompts.

“He’s sharp, he’s focused, he’ll be back to work in no time.”

“And do you want him to stay?” Maria asks.

“Yes, of course.” Clint answers immediately, before realizing the trick of their rapid fire questioning.

“Are you going to ask him to stay?” Natasha presses, but Clint has cottoned on to their combined assault now and just ignores the two women, burying his nose in his coffee.

“Do you know you was the first person he asked for when we brought him out of his coma?” Natasha starts.

“That’s one way of putting it.” Maria says, with an indelicate snort.

"What do you mean?" Clint asks, because even though he already knows that Phil cares, he could use the reassurance.

"I mean, he tore out his IV lines, threw himself out of bed, and had to be restrained when he realized you weren't there. We sedated him for another day, and the next time he woke up, the first thing I told him was that you were safe, and we’d gotten you back, and then he glared at me and refused to take any medication until I told him you were in Albuquerque." Maria explains.

“The next week, he tried to check himself out from Medical, but I caught up with him before he got out of the building. Fortunately, he hadn’t remastered much beyond walking at a reasonable pace yet. We didn’t think he’d head here the moment he was officially cleared, but apparently we were too trusting.”

“It took us a few hours to figure it out. I only arrived at your store before he did because he had a layover in O’Hare and his flight was delayed.” Maria snorts.

“I get it, Phil cares about me. But he wants to go back, right? Tell me he doesn’t want to work for S.H.I.E.L.D., Tasha? Tell me he’ll be happy here, dating the owner of a hardware store? I’m not some badass sniper anymore, you’ve noticed that, right? There’s a layer of dust on my bow. I’m done, I’m fucking boring, I’m normal as all hell, and I think I’m really liking that.”

They don’t harangue him much after that, but Clint notices the knowing looks they share and pointedly ignores them. Phil wanders out, yawning, and Clint tamps down the urge to hustle him back into bed, still unwilling to share the precious moments where Phil is soft and sleepy and unguarded.

\---

Phil sits at Clint’s desk at Johnny’s Hardware, figures out a problem that Clint had with Johnny’s back taxes. Clint stares at the man with the thinning hair perched on a cheap desk chair who bites the end of his pencils, and Clint doesn’t recognize Phil Coulson at all, because Phil Coulson was not born to do someone’s else’s taxes in a small hardware store in Albuquerque.

That night, when they fall asleep, Phil wraps himself around Clint, and snuffles in his hair, and mumbles an unclear phrase of affection, and Clint doesn’t know what he’s ever done to deserve even a small piece of this happiness.

“Just ask me to stay, Clint.” Phil mumbles into his hair, and Clint doesn't think that he was supposed to hear it, but he has.

“I have been asking you to stay.” Clint points out, propping himself up on one elbow to look at Phil. Phil looks better now, healthier. His cheeks have filled out, and they are slightly flushed.

“For the weekend. For three weeks. Ask me to stay.” Phil clarifies, a painfully hopeful look on his face.

Clint waits, willing himself to say the words, but they catch in his throat. It seems easy, thinking that he’d have it all if he just said the words, have his ordinary life, and have Phil at the same time, but Clint has seen enough of people to know that he can't just mold them to his will. He can't make Phil stay in Albuquerque, can't make him give up Agent Coulson to date the perfectly ordinary proprietor of a hardware store.

“I can’t.” Clint hears himself say, watches Phil’s face twitch a little in disappointment, but he can’t take it back now.

“Okay.” Phil says, and Clint doesn’t know what he was waiting for, but the look in Phil's eyes isn't sad or melancholy. There is an understanding there, a perceptible show of trust, and Clint doesn't know what he's done to deserve it.

“That’s it? Are you going to say anything?”

“Yes.” Phil answers, “I’ll need a ride to the airport in the morning.”

\---

Eight months after Clint Barton arrives in Albuquerque, he wakes up, at seven in the morning, to an empty house. Instinctively, he rolls over on his side, reaching out for the warm body that has shared his bed for two weeks, even if he knows that Phil is not there.

Phil has gone back to New York. Phil has gone back to S.H.I.E.L.D. Phil has moved out, taken a box filled with his clothing and the pictures on his dresser. “I’ll be back for the rest,” Phil said, and Clint wanted to tell him not to take apart the room, not to take away all the little tokens and mementos that helped Clint get over the difficult first months of his grief, and that buoyed his new life. Clint fidgets with the small vintage Captain America figure on the side table which looks nothing like Steve Rogers. There’s a new action figure out now which does, but this old one has the chips and cracks of a solitary childhood spent with a favourite toy, and Clint holds on to it, because it is something that he can still hold on to.

Clint walks to the garage, and sets the five gallons of purple paint in the living room. He goes to work at the store for ten hours, and when he comes home, carrying the necessary painting accoutrements, he covers the furniture and floor with drop cloths, and he paints. He paints over the orange walls in the living room, paints over nail holes and scratches and fingerprints, and over the choices Phil Coulson once made.

It takes hours, and when he’s finished, it is dawn.

Clint lies down on the paint streaked dropcloth, watching the most recent coat dry. The house doesn’t look the same anymore, doesn’t look like the house that Phil Coulson and Maria Hill built. It looks darker, less cheerful, and despite the fact that Clint had agonized over the colour, thought the colour was right when he looked at the paint chips in his store, thought it would look great when he mixed up the paint himself, thought that it would be perfect - it’s not.

It clashes with the couch. It clashes with everything.

Clint laughs painfully. The death was easier, he thinks bitterly. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance - he recites the five stages of grief in his head. He’d accepted, he’d reached step five. He’d moved on, he’d lived a life without Phil Coulson in it, he’d been fine.

And now, he has to do it all over again.

Clint wakes up in the morning, not bothering to get the purple streaks off his skin, and he goes to work, and the day passes and feels empty.

Ellie takes a look at Clint’s despondent face and shuffles him off to his small office. “You’ll scare everyone away looking like that, old man. I’ll handle the register today.” Clint sits then, thumbing through the stacks of business records Phil had neatly filed for him, and he feels odd and foreign in the room, like a superhero desperately trying to play at civilian life.

Outside, he hears Ellie chat with customers.

“I’m so glad Johnny’s is still here. We were so sad when Johnny passed, you know.” an elderly lady says. Clint doesn’t know her name, but they’d met at Johnny’s funeral.  

“It’s actually Sherwood Hardware now.” Ellie says, because Clint has been reminding everyone about the new name since he’d signed the paperwork for the place.

“Oh, right. Are you guys gonna change the sign outside?”

Sitting in the dark office, Clint suddenly knows that the answer is - no. Of course not, and the answer is so obvious that it makes him chuckle. Ellie glares at him like he’s insane, but she’s always found him a little bit odd. Clint hands her the keys to the shop, ignoring the customer who tries to talk to him about the weather. “You can close up today, kid,” he says, and he stands in front of the store, looking at the battered and weathered sign that hangs over the store. “Johnny’s Hardware,” it reads, and it has been there for decades, rooted in a little desert town. Not like Clint. Clint is rooted in something else entirely, and it was never the house with the orange walls, or the town in the balmy desert, or the hardware store with the old sign.

He’s not going to change the sign. He’s never really wanted to.  

He walks back to the house, an impossibly light feeling in his heart, and when he steps past the door, the warmth of the house is gone. It occurs to Clint, that the house with the orange walls isn’t a safe house anymore, filled with memories and laughter and happy bits of Phil's life. It’s just a house now, same as it ever was.

He strings his bow, walks out to the backyard, lodges arrows in a tree trunk, pulls them out, and does it again. He makes a hundred perfect shots in a row, and his arm starts to throb that ache that feels good, feels alive.

The house has fulfilled its purpose, he thinks, the realization striking him like a hit from Thor's hammer. It has done its job. It has restored him, made him whole again. A safe house with orange walls, and a desert town, have put a lot of effort into piecing Clint Barton together from broken, shattered pieces - of fragments of an archer and a spy and an agent - and tried to make a man from the ashes of what Clint Barton used to be. But most of all - it has given Clint a taste of normalcy, given him a chance at an ordinary life, and given him a _choice_.

Clint runs that feeling over his spine, breaths in the air of his past decisions, and finally, standing in the backyard of a house that no longer has orange walls, with his bow in his hand and and a vintage Captain America toy in his pocket, he finally feels _worthy_.

He calls Natasha. “Before you ask, I’m still not going back to S.H.I.E.L.D. What is the word on the Avengers Initiative?”

He can hear Natasha’s smile. “Hawkeye, I thought you’d never ask.”


	6. Chapter 6

Clint waits, because Phil has waited, and he can too. He walks to Johnny's Hardware to open up the shop when he sees the sun appear over the horizon, and he dares to hope. But he also trusts, knows that he’s never been able to give Phil _this_ before - never been able to give Phil a whole person instead of a needy, anxious child, or an arrogant smart ass of an agent. Now, he’s just Clint Barton, and all Clint Barton ever was, and all Clint Barton ever will be. And it’s enough. It has always been enough.

Natasha tells him that Phil is on some sort of walkabout in Arizona for the last days of his medically mandated leave, so he reads over his inventory lists at the store, gets his paperwork in order, and makes an extra set of keys for Ellie. He calls Phil, and the message he leaves on voicemail is laughably casual and he knows it - “Hey Coulson, I thought I’d let you know that I’m moving back to New York. Um, yeah - I’m just gonna pack up here in Albuquerque, settle some business, and then we can go out for coffee or something, ‘kay?”

He waits, because he understands Phil’s patience now, understands what it is that Phil has boundless trust in.

Eight months and one week after arriving in Albuquerque, Clint walks in to work at Johnny’s Hardware, and Phil Coulson is already there at the door, holding two paper cups of coffee.

"Are you sure, Clint?" he says, even before "Good morning" or "Hello," because they’ve known and re-known each other long enough that such pleasantries are tedious.

"I would have stayed." Phil continues, but Clint doesn’t need the reassurances anymore. He knows. Phil would have stayed.

“Well, I’m not selling the store, so I still have a contingency plan.” Clint says, cringes at his own bad joke, and is relieved that his instinct was to make one. He opens up the store, ushering Phil in. He takes one of the cups of coffee from Phil, sips it instead of gulping it and letting it burn down his throat, because he doesn’t need to do it to remind him that he is alive anymore.

He inhales deeply, wishes he has rehearsed his little speech and realizes that he doesn't need to. He's Hawkeye, has been since he was a child, and always will be, he’s Clint Barton, and has always been, and always will be. And being the proprietor of Johnny’s Hardware is as much of a clown suit as any SHIELD undercover identity ever was, but that too is forged into a few months of his identity, and he can embrace it, and he can also let it go. He is Clint Barton, he is Hawkeye, he contains multitudes, and all this time he’s been running, searching for a place to call home, searching for a safe house to call his own, he’d neglected to notice that Phil Coulson has always been exactly where home was.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure. I love Albuquerque, always will. I needed it, you know? Needed the normalcy, needed to know what it'd be like to have a perfectly ordinary life. But I'm not an ordinary person, Phil, and neither are you. I’ve changed. I’ve changed so much, but my rock, my center - it’s you - it’s always been you, and then it was your house, and then now, it’s just me. And - and - you've taken care of me for years and - and I don't need that anymore. I've needed you for so long, and now, I just don't _need_ you anymore.”

Phil’s eyes crinkle, amused. “I just wanted you to be okay, but I think you could have phrased that sentence better.”

“What I mean is that I don’t need you, but I _want_ you. I'm _worthy_ of you."

"Clint. You've always been." Phil says, grasping Clint in a crushingly tight hug and kissing him softly on his forehead. "I've just been waiting for you to know that."

Clint can’t answer, but it is because his hands and lips are already tangled up in Phil.

"Ew, get a room." Ellie pipes up, marching through the door. "Er, I mean I'm all for gay marriage and whatever, but I eat lunch on that counter."

Clint laughs against Phil's shoulder, and he is happy in his own skin.

\---

The three things that Clint takes from Albuquerque are a Liz Phair CD, Maria Hill's ugly, furry, Muppet blanket, a vintage Captain America action figure. He'd wanted to take the picture of him and Phil, but Phil had gotten to it first, and when Clint sees it on Phil's desk, he tries to remain stoic, because he's an Avenger now, and Avengers can't really break down and cry happy tears in their former handler's office. He gives the Liz Phair CD back to Maria. He gives Natasha the blanket, laughing when she comments on how hideous it is in front of Maria, who looks offended. He keeps the Captain America figure.

Sherwood Hardware stays Johnny’s Hardware. Ellie turns out to be surprisingly competent when given a chance, and Clint lets her beat Maria Hill’s record of being the youngest store manager for Johnny’s Hardware(Maria was 21).  

The deed to the house is drawn up again, this time with four names on it. Maria, Phil, Clint and Natasha draw straws, and Maria wins and gets to pick the next wall colour. Maria reverts it back to orange, complaining that Clint must be colourblind if he ever thought that any shade of purple would match the couch. She hires professional painters; Maria Hill does not have the time to fuss with drop cloths.

In a hard-won concession to Natasha, although neither Maria not Natasha would admit how the concession was won, the entryway is painted a dark red.

Phil tries to secretly repaint his room in Albuquerque - his and Clint’s room now - a light purple, but he only manages to finish two walls before Clint barges in, waving a plate of burritos in the air. The room stays that way, half purple and half light blue, and Clint thinks that it’s kinda ugly, but Phil thinks that it works.

\---

Clint moves back to New York, to a small loft in Bed-Stuy(eventually, he buys that building, because apparently he likes owning buildings now, but that is a different story). Phil’s apartment in the city is a rental with beige walls, and he asks Clint to move in with him when they get back to New York, and Clint says no. “I need to take this slowly.” Clint says, and then is surprised at the proud look on Phil’s face, like he’s done something profoundly wonderful by actually saying “no.” Clint doesn’t pretend to understand it. Phil quietly makes space for Clint’s toothbrush and empties out a dresser drawer for him, anyway.

Their first date, redux, because an awkward dinner at a mediocre Thai place in Albuquerque cannot possibly count, is at a small Italian place that Steve Rogers recommends.

Their first fight lasts a month. It starts about Phil’s tendency to overexert himself, because Phil is surprisingly prickly about finding out that Clint’s mother-henning instinct is as strong as Phil’s ever was. It escalates with a dog that Clint adopts, a mangy mutt with one eye with exorbitant vet bills and a weak handle on appropriate pooping zones. It escalates even further with an ex--girlfriend that apparently Clint forgot he never really broke up with, and a cellist that Phil was apparently dating before his “death” and never mentioned to anyone but Pepper. It ends with some therapy and lots of talking, and Phil realizes that he does like this version of Clint better, the one that doesn’t always concede, the one that asserts his equality in the relationship, the one that doesn’t wait in anyone’s shadow. Even when Phil is absolutely certain that he is definitely right. They fight, and they learn how to fight respectfully, and it’s okay. Eventually, Phil warms up to the dog(now named Lucky), but still refuses to dog sit when Clint is off on longer missions.

Their first purchase together is an orange couch(for Phil’s apartment, although Clint crashes there most nights now). The second is another copy of Liz Phair’s Exile to Guyville, which is hilarious until Phil admits that he doesn’t actually like Liz Phair either.

Their first vacation together, of course, is to Albuquerque, for Maria Hill’s birthday party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And, we're done! Sorry this was a bit of a rambling downer...I started this at a time to get some depressing things involving death and relationships out of my system and just forced myself to finish it recently. 
> 
> As always, I appreciate all your comments and your time!
> 
> I'm also on Tumblr - [dustjane.tumblr.com](http://dustjane.tumblr.com/)!


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